Day 8 - Sunday

To see our photos from today, click here.

We slept in until 9:30am again this morning. The morning was overcast and cool. We ate breakfast at another local cafe “Comptoir 7,” which consisted of juice, coffee (hot chocolate for the girls), and croissants. We had no set plans so we decided to hop on a bus at the stop near the cafe and explore. The bus took us past the Champs Elysee, and was a nice way to see another part of the city. We got off for 15 minutes, walked around, got back on and took it to the Montparnesse area and back to a stop near our hotel.

Since it was Sunday, we thought it would be nice to visit the Notre Dame Cathedral. We had seen its distinct gothic architcture from a distance when we visited Saint Chappelle. After spending some time in the Chapel, we bypassed the tour of the towers and headed toward nearby local shops.

When we left, it was close to 3pm and we were ready for lunch. We purchased a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese and some vegetables and dip (and of course the girls bought a pastry!) then went back to the hotel and ate in the dining area...we are so lucky to be able to do this! As we have done for the past several days, we went back up to the room to rest for a couple of hours and read.

At 6pm we got our second wind and decided to take the metro to the Latin Quarter, which gave us a feel for another part of the city. It is so named because Latin was the language actually spoken here in the middle ages. This area has an artsy, bohemian feel to it. Nearby, we found the Luxembourg Garden & park. It reminded us of Central Park (except I liked it much better). In addition to the gardens, sculptures and ponds, there were areas for playing tennis, basketball and petanque, a French sport where the goal is to throw small metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (similar to bocce). A carousel, a string puppet theatre, and pony rides are also available.

After leaving the gardens, we ate dinner at a “wok bar” which was very good and fairly inexpensive. Then we took the metro to Trocadero Square, which we had heard provided the best view of the Eiffel Tower (it did not disappoint!). The day and evening ended up being beautiful (70’s and sunny) and we strolled back to the hotel. For the first time in Paris, we arranged for a wake up call for the next morning (7:30am) so we can get to the Eiffel Tower when it opens at 9:00am and avoid the lines.